Four Things

Taken from Natalie at Growing A Critter, and since I have not done one of these in a while, I'll give it a go!


A) FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER: church, chinese take out for the office, Safeway and Chipotle

B) FOUR PEOPLE WHO E-MAIL ME (regularly): Amy, Nadia, Natalie, and Katrina

C) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS: white pizza with pepperoni, cream cheese chicken, good tuna fish salad on farmers market sourdough, and

D) FOUR PLACES I’D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW: in Rehobeth hanging out with Gramps; in Saint Louis; at a hockey game with Pam, Jason and Abby; or anywhere Anny and Abby are

E) FOUR PEOPLE I THINK WILL RESPOND (when I post this to the blog): SarahKM, Chere, Sarahlynn, Steph

F) FOUR MOVIES I WOULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AND OVER: The Princess Bride, Drumline, Keeping the Faith and The Goonies.

Feel free to give it a go on your blog!

Who do YOU Turn To?

Okay - at this point it is inevitable to avoid the political world. It's been that way in our area for - well for years. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but we're the ones that hear about all of the crud on Capitol Hill and it does not matter what state folks represent. This time of this year is especially permeating.

All of our local news stations are hitting us with "We're Your Source for the Latest on the Campaign Trail." They don't mean their parent, they mean their own little sites. I'm confident that Fox5DC is not in touch with the rest of the country. Heck, they are fairly out of it when it comes to local stuff. (But, they do have a reporter named Wisdom. What a cool name!)

I know that Yahoo has coverage here.
I know that CNN is covering here.
NPR is covering here, though I have not looked at it.

Unfortunately, Colbert and Stewart are spotty at their coverage because of the writers strike.

Where do you go for your political news? Do you prefer a biased view (i.e. Fox News) or balanced (i.e. MSNBC)?

Better yet - do you care yet? Are you going to?

Do You Blog Differently?

This time of year a lot of people post about "Why I Blog" and the such. I blog because it's a way to communicate to folks that I really want to email, but just don't. I blog to keep people updated on Abby's world. I blog to get feedback from folks on how they are doing. I blog about my kidneys as a way to 1 - inform and 2 - remember. Let's face it, I've been on enough drugs that it's hard to keep them straight. I've had surgeries that I can hardly remember, and hopefully this is the early stages of my disease and I have a lot more pain and annoyance to look forward to. (Honestly! No drugs means less life. It's annoying, but if it keeps me around, I'm okay with it.)

I find myself commenting on blogs a lot more recently. That's fun too.

But, and there's always a but.... I find myself wanting to blog about things that I can not. My parents read my blog. My mother-in-law reads my blog. My co-workers read my blog. Not that I'm a fan of surprises, but if I want to tell people that I've cut off my foot, I would probably tell certain people first, and in the right time. (For the record, my foot is fine, but I didn't want to use a real example, that would be bad.)

I found a friends blog online this week and told her that I did. She's the intern at our church, and I wanted to see if it was okay with her if I read it, or if she intended to be more anonymous locally. (For the record, she was cool with it.)

I know of many pastors around here that blog. Some do it very overtly, encouraging their congregation to read and react. One occasionally posts early versions of his sermon for feedback prior to presenting. One was anonymous to most people, but when she realized that the folks that knew her moniker, she was concerned that her head of staff would find out and be hurt. Nothing to offend her, just some boundaries that might need to be set.

When I don't blog, it's typically because the things going on are things that would effect me negatively either in the family or work. Do I have bad days at work? Hellstotheyes. We installed a new server and it's driven me nuts a few times. I don't blog about it because at the office I have the "hey, we got something new, we've got to work the kinks out" face to keep on. Truth: it sucks. (Sure hope the office isn't reading this week!)

There are both exciting and trying things in my life that I can't blog about yet, but really want to.

So - do you blog differently because you know who is reading? Do you find yourself keeping things closer or being more daring? Do you know that someone is reading, and blog anyway?

History: The Way We Met/The First Year

I've decided to blog about some of the things in the past for a couple of reasons. One is that sometimes it is just nice to think back to special times. Another is to have a place for Abby to find it later in life, in case she wants to throw a surprise Anniversary Party (hint, hint older-Abby).

Part One of the series: The summer we met, and the first year we knew each other.

Anny and I met at Camp Glenkirk, which is unfortunately no longer a camp. (Stupid Urban Sprawl.) I was coming back as a Camp Counselor for the third summer and she had signed on to lead games and the low ropes course.

Since I had been working there for several summers, I kind of had my friends lined up, but you can bet that I am always looking to hang out with cool new folks.

We started off staff training the way we would start every group of campers off in the past, and probably how they still do it, playing a name game. Always start with a name-and-favorite-____ type of game. My name is Rob and my favorite pizza combination is ham and pineapple.

Next we moved on to a team-building but still getting-to-know-you game. This "game" was to line up by birthday. Easy enough, right? Yeah, we had just met each other. Oh yeah, the other rule was that you could not talk. It's actually brilliant. Leaders emerge to decide which end is January and which is December. Lots of flashing numbers with your hands. It always takes longer than you think, and often someone is out of order because they were not actually paying attention.

As Anny and I share the same DATE of birth, we thought it would hilarious if she jumped on my back and shared our spot in line. Yeah, real funny, but it certainly broke the ice. Anny typically hung out with the older side of the staff while I always made sure to spend time with just about everyone on staff, so I saw her daily, but on weekends hanging out was rare. She would go to parties, I would stay at camp and be "helpful" with the kids that were there for ten days instead of the regular five.

Most summer camp staff are in college. Most of the folks at CG were in good colleges, certainly not close to Northern Virginia where the camp is. Anny was teaching full time and I was at a local community college. We were "leftover" from the group.

I got a call one day saying that she needed to get away, and since she didn't know many people, I would have to do. (exaggerated, but only slightly.) Actually, Anny had plans for the evening, but needed to kill time during the day and had heard great things about the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. I thought it would be a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon, so I said sure.

We went up to Baltimore and caught the Maryland Science Center for an Imax movie and had lunch. On our way into one of the destinations Anny got a call on her cell phone canceling her evening plans. Good for me, bad for her. We decided to catch dinner and a movie. If we call this our "first date" it was probably not a good movie choice: Stigmata. (Dinner at TGIFriday's, which is where my brother and his wife had their first date. Cool!)

At the end of the evening we just sat and talked. Catching up on family, friends and life. When we headed back to my house we were greeted with a wagging tail that was not present before I left. While I was out, my Aunt Pam got a puppy! What better way to cap off a non-date-date than with a brand new puppy? Okay, so it was a bit strange to have a dog in the house, but we love her dearly even today.

We hung out a lot from that point on, even had a standing non-date-date on Thursday's for Killians, ice cream and ER. For our (shared) birthday, my family made two cakes, one for her and one for me. (It was my 21st!) That was a fun evening, but since it was actually a week before my birthday and I refuse to break the law, I refrained. Okay, so it was because my family, church friends, work friends, and friend friends were all there and it was a little awkward.

Throughout the spring we began to get really close, but were still on the friends plane. Our friendship was so close that when someone asked if Anny wanted to go see a concert, she checked with me first. I considered that pre-dating, if not full on dating. She did not ever think of it as such. That was the spring that Vertical Horizon's popular song "Everything You Want" was released. Yes, you remember correctly, it was about the fact that you could keep looking, but the perfect mate is me. She missed that too.

Anny had decided to take a job in Tennessee because she was fed up with the bureaucracy of the school system she worked for. I was devastated at the idea, but knew that she should do what's best for her. Friends come and go, always have, always will. Anny was still around for the summer, and we would be working side by side as trip leaders and if something happened, so be it. If not, that was okay too.

Staff training came and went, but she was in and out of that because of her teaching job. Once she was on site and we were around each other more and more, something clicked in her head. On a river trip she had an ah-ha moment. Out Loud. She yelled "EMPATHY" on the side of the Shenandoah river. I was too focused on other stuff to really get what she was trying to say.

I was decidedly in love with Anny at this point. I knew I wanted to marry her right then. Honestly, I know it sounds dorky, but it's true. At a bonfire one night we were talking and she used some metaphor about people leaving but returning and making them stronger - or something like that. That night was so clear and quiet. It was perfect.

The next night I offered to take her out to dinner. Not a handful of staff, just the two of us. We had done this before many times, but this time was different. We both got into our nice clothes and headed to Copeland's. Something was different about Anny. What was it. Oh yeah, I could not remember ever having seen her in makeup! At one point she pulled a lipstick box out of her purse and I actually said "what is that?!" It was just not something I was accustomed to seeing her wear.

When we got back to camp it was late, but we had not yet seen the season finale of ER, aka "our show" at that point in our life. Everyone else knew not to bother us. Now comes the really cheesy part.

We were talking after the show about the summer and us and her job in the fall. I finally just said "do you want to be my girlfriend?" (wow, what a dork. I know, I know.) It was my way of putting everything out there: Yes would mean great things; No would mean an awkward six weeks to close out the summer.

She said "yes."

I like this idea of capturing our history. I capture my kidney history mostly so that I can refer to it. I love our story and love to think about it. It makes me appreciate where we are a little more every time. Other things I want to capture are Our Proposal and Our Wedding. I'm sure there are other important things, and I will rely on Anny to help me decide what those are.

Is "Green" Just a Fad?

I had an argument last week with a co-worker about the current push for Going Green. His opinion is that it's just a fad, and we won't care about it in two years. I think he's way WAY off, and that it's a movement that has been working for a while and is now getting to the front of people's thinking.

I know that there are some people that are making small changes now, and others that are changing the world. We can't afford hybrid cars right now, but we can switch to cloth diapers. Next car purchase, though, will probably go hybrid. (We're waiting on word about the rumored hybrid minivan!)

In his defense, we were talking about Green as it relates to churches. I don't think that any church has ever sought to work against the environment, but when all of your buildings are older than most of your members, it is often true that there is waste. A lot of churches, though, are replacing old, busted things with new, green things.

I don't believe that any church that is built from this point forward will have the same low-on-environment standards, either. As our church investigaed adding onto our building last year, there was clear committment to do as much as possible to reduce our environmental footprint. I was actually amazed that folks were thinking about these things, and my eyes were opened wide to the opportunities for churches to take real steps to be leaders in this movement.

What is your church (or work, or organization) doing to make itself greener?

Or, better yet, am I way off to think that this is more than a fad that will pass in a couple of years?

Three Weeks is Too Long

Not going to apologize for no real posts in what seems like forever. Kind of a lot has been happening, so I'm just going to do bullet points for now:

Abby has a full on tooth, and a second on the cusp!

Christmas was great. We got to spend time with family and friends alike. Some folks fit into both categories, which is even better!

We installed a new server at my office. It made it nice and quiet, as everyone else was basically out of the office. I got a good deal done, but not as much as I would like to have. I learned some stuff about servers, though!

New Years Eve we hung out with other parents of toddlers/babies for some fun times. We left at 8:30, but that was fine with us. Abby woke up in time to celebrate the time change in the mid-west.

On the other hand, she's slept through the night for a few nights.

Aunt Nadia (Abby's aunt, not mine) got to babysit while Anny and I headed different directions for meetings last week. Major downer is that Abby was tired and just mean about it. When she cries - she cries loudly!

I'm working on a presentation for church on Sunday. We're celebrating what happened last year as we continue to build excitement for what is coming. This is a completely new format (worship at tables so that we can transition into a pot luck lunch!)

What's new in your world?

Trivia Question: Tired Daddy

Trivia question time!

Which of the following things would most likely have happened today due to a weird combination of lack of sleep and medicine for an oncoming head cold?

a - I left late for work
b - I put my boxers on backwards only to realize it at work
c - I somehow remembered to feed the dog today
d - all of the above

(hint: Daily Digesting of Dietary Delectables makes a Daddy Delightful.)


(And to answer your burning question, yes, I have left them backwards. How do you change that at work??!)